1 In 10 Gamers Suffering From Pathological Symptoms Due To Video Game Addiction, Study Finds

According to a new study, video game addiction is real and one in every 10 gamers is suffering mental, social and behavioral issues because of it.

Negative Implications Of Video Game Addiction On Gamers

As the industry that has gained the biggest increase during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, video games have made an incredible leap from being a mere pastime to a medium where anything and everything is possible, able to tell stories and provide experiences other forms of media can’t.

However, there is a bad side to it, which includes addiction. Unfortunately, U.S. psychologists claim that 10 percent of gamers (or one in every 10 gamers) suffer from it, resulting in mental, social and behavioral issues. They are referred to as “pathological gamers.”

The study, which took six years, is the longest video game study conducted so far and shows that these pathological gamers actually show higher levels of shyness, depression, aggression and anxiety than their peers.

“The aim of this particular study is to look at the longer-term impact of having a particular relationship with video games and what it does to a person over time. To see the impact, we examined the trajectories of pathological video gameplay across six years, from early adolescence to emerging adulthood,” Sarah Coyne, lead author and a professor of family life at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah, said.

To do the study, Coyne and her team studied some 385 adolescents that all completed questionnaires once year through a time period of six years, starting from when they were 15. From this, the team was able to say that being male and having low levels of pro-social behavior are the biggest predictors for video game addiction, while having high pro-social behavior (which is voluntary behavior meant to benefit someone else) is a “protector” against video game addiction.

However, the researchers are aware of the drawbacks in their study, such as the fact that participants were only monitored until the age of 21. This means they can lose all these negative behaviors as they develop more skills and mature better.

“Obviously, this is not a worldwide representative sample so this could function differently in other countries,” Coyne said.